J-Pop Stars Pump up the World’s Largest Projection Mapping Show at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

A meteoric J-pop duo with a huge global following has pitched in to boost the world’s largest projection mapping show and help illuminate midsummer nights in Tokyo.

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An artwork, combining YOASOBI’s up-tempo vocal and instrumental music with a riot of images and colors, made its debut on the TOKYO Night & Light program on July 26. The nightly show uses the exterior of the 243-meter-tall Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) No. 1 Building as its screen. Three other projections created by internationally acclaimed artists also joined the menu over the same weekend.

YOASOBI – female vocalist Ikura, 23, and male singer-songwriter Ayase, 30 - has contributed the newly composed “Butai ni Tatte (Standing on the Stage),” which echoes the emotions of athletes ready for competition. The song has been adopted by Japan’s public broadcasting corporation NHK as a theme song for its sports programs, and its first Night & Light presentation was timed to coincide with the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

For the first screening, a horde of people gathered at the Citizens’ Plaza at the foot of the 48-story building, a landmark in the business and entertainment hub of Shinjuku. They watched animated silhouette images of runners and other athletes romp around on the wall.

The Night & Light project has lived up to the TMG’s goal of creating a “new tourism resource to color Tokyo’s nightlife,” attracting 280,000 visitors in five months since its launch on February 25. Projected onto an area, 127 meters by 110 meters, the show has been certified by Guinness World Records™ as the “largest architectural projection-mapped display (permanent).”

Screened every half an hour between 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. at present, the program strings together a few projections for 15 minutes. On weekends and holidays, the series feature crowd pullers such as the world-famous Japanese movie monster Godzilla and a work inspired by traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e paintings. “Standing on the Stage,” 3.5 minutes long, is to be screened every night for the time being.

Meaning a “night out,” YOASOBI is a global household name five years after its debut. Its hit “Idol,” the theme tune for the TV animation “Oshi no Ko,” became the first Japanese song to top Billboard’s Global (excluding U.S.) chart in June last year. It was also acknowledged as Japan’s best popular song in terms of royalties in the year to March 2024.

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